THE COOKTOWN CONNECTION
THE worldwide pandemic certainly threw a spanner in the works for everyone wanting to travel anywhere. Even intestate trips became a risk for travelling fishos. Trying to get to Cairns last year for the heavy tackle, black marlin season was an absolute disaster for me and I missed out on some amazing fishing and photo opportunities. Ah well, at last things are starting to settle a little and we can finally get back to doing what we want to do.
Another place I missed going to last year in Queensland was Cooktown and this quaint, little old country town has an amazing history, not only with the thousands of early settlers and gold miners, but for us fishos. The town was always a stop-over port for the old Cairns marlin fleet heading to and from Lizard Island to re-fuel and restock food supplies. Many anglers in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s stayed at the brand-new resort on Lizard Is. and fished from day-boats running out and back in from the outer reef.
During the late ‘80s the marlin fleet started to see a whole new trend unfolding and many of the owners of the older, smaller 10 to
